Considering a Rebreather....

[ScubaInChicago]

I didn't have much of a learning curve with my buoyancy, But then I don't plummet to the bottom. I tend to ease on down, so no crater for me... yet.

Take it easy on the guy. A lot of people want to sell their rebreathers after their first RB dive. I know quite a few people who still need to hold onto the ascent line on deco dives, especially when flushing with o2. It doesn't come naturally to some people. Once it's been mastered, it makes you wonder why it took so long to switch over.

 

[RainPilot]

Im fine now, actually enjoy the fiddling with minimum loop to get that last bit of buoyancy sorted. BUT, interestingly, I have noticed that without thinking about it i now tend to swim around things rather than over the rocks and such. Someone asked me if that were the case and I thought, no way. Then I thought some more, checked my dive log profiles and what do you know, MUCH flatter. Then I caught myself going around a rock instead of 3' over (this at 130') and realized that was exactly what i was doing in an effort to stay at the same depth. All instinctively and subconsciously.

On the "plummeting" note, I learned to scuba dive in South Africa, off Cape Town. Where we went diving, they were doing Great White cage dives 2 miles away. The standard procedure for ALL dives was negative entry, get down as fast as possible to the bottom. To this day i still dive about a foot off the bottom at all times, last week my teammate was diving 3' above me and it made me REALLY uncomfortable. i know its not necessary but those first laws of primacy are a beast to kick.

Watching a mate get eaten 100 yards away from me kind of added some negative reinforcement as well.

 

[The Chairman]

I also find myself swimming around obstructions rather than over them. Part of that is to stop fiddling with buoyancy, and also to keep out of current.

On the "plummeting" note,

Different conditions require different techniques. I tend to still hug the bottom, but I prefer a slower descent in terms of being negative. If I'm doing a hot drop, I tend to kick on down rather than rely on negative buoyancy.

 

[ScubaInChicago]

Im fine now, actually enjoy the fiddling with minimum loop to get that last bit of buoyancy sorted. BUT, interestingly, I have noticed that without thinking about it i now tend to swim around things rather than over the rocks and such. Someone asked me if that were the case and I thought, no way. Then I thought some more, checked my dive log profiles and what do you know, MUCH flatter. Then I caught myself going around a rock instead of 3' over (this at 130') and realized that was exactly what i was doing in an effort to stay at the same depth. All instinctively and subconsciously.

On the "plummeting" note, I learned to scuba dive in South Africa, off Cape Town. Where we went diving, they were doing Great White cage dives 2 miles away. The standard procedure for ALL dives was negative entry, get down as fast as possible to the bottom. To this day i still dive about a foot off the bottom at all times, last week my teammate was diving 3' above me and it made me REALLY uncomfortable. i know its not necessary but those first laws of primacy are a beast to kick.

Watching a mate get eaten 100 yards away from me kind of added some negative reinforcement as well.

Just a little tip...If you're neutral @ a given depth, i.e. 100' you can ascend over the rocks and kick back down to 100'. Assuming you haven't done anything (wing inflation, nose vent, etc) you will be right back at neutral buoyancy.

 

[RainPilot]

Just a little tip...If you're neutral @ a given depth, i.e. 100' you can ascend over the rocks and kick back down to 100'. Assuming you haven't done anything (wing inflation, nose vent, etc) you will be right back at neutral buoyancy.

True enough, I think that i am subconsciously overconcerned about loop expansion on the way up. Its not a thing, I dont find myself saying "around, not over!" but it just seems to work out that way.

 

[OMANDIVER]

I just wanted to add my experience to this thread. In a spirit of eager anticipation I undertook a days CCR introduction with a great instructior on a well regarded unit; a morning of theory, equipment prep and then two dives in the afternoon. I was wearing a drysuit for it which was helpful and did not find buoyancy control as difficult as I imagined. Sure it took some concentration, one or two trips to the surface but all in all not bad at all. It was a really worthwhile experience and has saved me a considerable amount of money! I really did not like this kind of diving, it just isnt for me. I found the unit heavy and awkward to manoeuvre; water resistance was significant, much worse than steel 12s and 2 stages in OC, i found the breathing experience unpleasant (BMCL)and hard work, I couldnt move my head to left or right because of this configuration, but most significantly I found I did not like diving in a machine. To me it was like driving a automobile. It was the antithesis of everything I started diving for. The difference was between going for a drive in the mountains, sure you see more, and hiking in the mountains. Lesson here for me was that it was worth finding a good instructor with a popular unit and spending some money on getting a couple of dives. i really thought I would like this kind of diving more, but was surprised to find it isn't for me.

 

[The Chairman]

i found the breathing experience unpleasant

This is very dependent on the rebreather. I grew to abhor the breathing of the rEvo, but I have loved the SF2 from the beginning and it's getting easier all the time.

 

[rjack321]

Neither my Meg nor my Pelagian require me to do any funky acrobatics to get back on the loop. I don't let it float away when I bail to a 2nd stage, it just hangs under my chin. It doesn't go anywhere, and it's not like it's in the way. I can grab it just like its a bungee'd secondary.

A quick check of youtube shows many different bailout procedures, most of them ridiculously overcomplicated, but in the quick glance I saw, none of them had the loop over their head or really anything else that would require you to break trim just to grab the loop. Is this an SF2 thing?

I don't know about SF2's, but throwing the loop over your head and leaving it there sounds like a disaster for cave diving.

I can pull mine down and shove it below my chin fairly easily. I do use a gag strap and you have to pull the DSV/BOV down and out if you want your mask to stay on. My mask is over my gag strap.

 

[rjack321]

Take it easy on the guy. A lot of people want to sell their rebreathers after their first RB dive. I know quite a few people who still need to hold onto the ascent line on deco dives, especially when flushing with o2. It doesn't come naturally to some people. Once it's been mastered, it makes you wonder why it took so long to switch over.

I have no idea how an O2 flush works on a JJ, but you can't add gas and not have it affect your buoyancy. The shallower you are, the more you potentially have to add to change the fO2 significantly the more its gonna change.

Just a little tip...If you're neutral @ a given depth, i.e. 100' you can ascend over the rocks and kick back down to 100'. Assuming you haven't done anything (wing inflation, nose vent, etc) you will be right back at neutral buoyancy.

Depends on the counterlung volume, mine are small and with 10ft of up and down and I'll vent a bit.